


little by little

by newsbypostcard



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Hope, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-05
Updated: 2020-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:20:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23027692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newsbypostcard/pseuds/newsbypostcard
Summary: Scenes and character studies from abandoned wips.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 9
Kudos: 77





	little by little

**Author's Note:**

> I'm in a state of huge flux with my writing process. This has me looking a lot at WIPs trying to figure out how to finish them, or whether I can. This is "the parts"—little scenes that are technically complete but that no longer work for the piece or how I'm writing it. They'll be kind of fragmented and meant to evoke a feeling that something should come next, but each chapter is complete. Sort of like a graveyard; more of an archive of scenes that are done but would otherwise never see the light of day. Some wistful, some comedic. Will add periodically as I pare down my WIP pile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Opening scene from a WIP being overhauled about Steve and Bucky turned giant-hunters.

  


Steve flies into Waterloo a day early and Bucky meets him at the airport, hands shoved deep in the pockets of his rough leather jacket. Steve's struck by how tanned he looks—a winter spent on the Mediterranean has given him a warm look. His hair is tied back, keeping the bangs out of his face. 

He tastes like licorice when Steve kisses him, so he kisses him deeper, with tongue, right there in the airport. Wants to really taste him. "You'll get us arrested with stunts like that," Bucky mutters, but he slips his hand under the hem of Steve's shirt as they walk from the airport. For a second, it feels normal. Steve's elbow hooks around Bucky's neck, the smile indelible from his face. They don't see each other much these days, but when they do, Steve feels like a million bucks. 

They ride Bucky's motorcycle—stolen, no doubt; resource expenditure, he says, leaves a paper trail—over freeways and then through countryside, finally pulling into a rustic motel just outside Waverly. It's far enough afield from Clint's farm to make sure they won't run into anyone they know—or so they hope. 

They aren't even in the door when Steve turns Bucky around and kisses him filthy, walking him back, throwing the door shut behind him. Bucky's jacket hits the floor. Enough crackling phone conversations over the last six months and there's no need for words now; they both know what they want, reach for it, say nothing that doesn't evoke the other. Eventually, they resurface for food—simple bar fare from down the way, but even this tastes good. Months since Steve had last left him in France and Bucky seems less frantic now, even with the next day's unpleasantries looming overhead. He seems to eat carefully, as though he feels it too—like even the most average burger is among the world's delights, every bite worth taking. 

After dinner, emboldened by dusk, they duck a fence and walk through what might be cornfields, snow still firm under their boots. It's been a moderate winter, but there'd been a dump of snow last week that was struggling to clear. Steve wonders whether these things affect Clint's harvest.

Does Clint... harvest?

"Too much space," Bucky mutters, looking around.

"It's peaceful."

"People can spot you from a mile away," Bucky says. "It's too flat, too open."

"I'd think it would be a sniper's paradise."

"You kidding me? Where would I set up? Target would see me before I had my gun assembled."

Steve's been smiling so much his face starts to hurt. "You're gonna have a hell of a time at Clint's. His farm is something else."

"The hell does Barton even farm, anyway?"

"I was just thinking about that, I don't know."

"Arrows."

"Must be."

Bucky shakes his head, sighs into the night. "Not like I exactly know the guy, but I never pegged him for the rural type."

"Don't think he is. Fury set him up here to protect his family."

"On purpose?"

"Seems to like it fine. Guess he's handy and all that. Fixed the porch himself, might've built the barn. Looks nice. Keeps it up."

"Jesus." Bucky's head turns; he cocks his ear to the air, eyes focused and narrow. Then he's pulled away from Steve and started cutting diagonally across the field. There's no urgency in it; Steve's concern wanes. Bucky's found something he wants. The idea warms him, has him following a couple paces behind. "Different strokes, I guess."

"You never think about retiring in a place like this?"

Bucky pulls a face. "When would I retire?"

"Humour me. Your Ma grew up on a farm, always thought you inherited it. You never thought about it?" 

"Nah," Bucky says. "Spent enough time in the Midwest to know a population density of fuck-all is not the life for me."

As they get further from the road, Steve sees what caught Bucky's attention: the shadowed outline of a horse, bent low and foraging. There's a fence between them, but that's never stopped Bucky before. He clicks his tongue as they get closer and the horse raises his head—he always was a whisperer when it came to these beasts. Bucky slows to a stop and the pair of them approach each other in fits and starts, Bucky's hand outstretched.

"Hey," Bucky murmurs, running his palm along the horse's muzzle. It's a big horse, as far as Steve can tell; chestnut colouring, mud caked on its shoes. "Hi, how are you?" Bucky says. "I'm Barnes. Match made in heaven, you and me. We should hang out."

Steve stands a little apart and watches with yearning. Years ago, in a life now forgotten, Bucky'd worked two summers tending the nearest police stables, worked up regular friendships with some of the horses there. For a city boy, he'd always loved the animals, right through to the war. Even in the worst of his reticence, he'd had a gentle word for any horse they passed by.

"'Bout as tall as I've ever seen," Bucky says, running a hand along his neck. Steve feels vindicated. He never had a gift with these creatures, prefers to watch Bucky at work. Bucky's prosthetic hangs by his side, blocked by his body, as though to shield the horse from it. "I'm interrupting your dinner, I know. Dunno what you're doing out here so late. Wish I had something for you." There's some peace in Bucky here. They both know tomorrow's gonna kick something off; Fury wouldn't have called them, all of them, Bucky and Tony to sit in the same room, if it wasn't big. Something to keep them together awhile, if on terms they don't want. 

For now, a quiet moment—one of those few but profound. Tucked between the eternal, frantic hunt for restitution.

Maybe this is restitution, for Bucky. Conversations with horses. Steve knows it feels like that for him, getting to bear witness to moments like these.

They stand a minute or two before Bucky lets the horse pull away, then he leans on the fence, a slight smile on his face. Steve stands beside him, watching Bucky watch the horse, learning the lines that form near his eyes in the fractal light of the moon.

"You could have all the horses you want if we lived out here," Steve murmurs as they walk back to the motel, slipping his hand against Bucky's again. "Run a stable. A real business, within the letter of the law—" 

"What happened to you, Rogers? Time was you used to hate the law as much as it deserved." 

"Retirement's not retirement if you're still trying not to get caught." 

"We're here to get briefed on the end of the universe, and you want to talk about retirement?"

Steve purses his lips against his own sentimentality. They may as well be shacked up in a bombed-out farm in Italy, for all Steve's talking about the end of the war. Then Steve shrugs, decides to name it: "Our adjoining rooms in '45 Dieppe. Remember that? Something to look forward to." He nudges Bucky's hip with their entwined hands. "That's all I'm doing."

Bucky's mouth sets. "Well, we're not retiring here," he mutters. A tense moment passes; then he brings Steve's hand up to his mouth, press a chaste kiss to his thumb. "Europe, if anything. Maybe France. They have horses in France."

"Plus we both speak the language."

"No winter in the south."

Now Steve understands. "Vineyard. Cheeses."

"I'll buy the land if you don't ask how. What'll you need to disappear, six… eight months?"

"Hell with it, Buck, let's go tomorrow. We already know the way to the airport. First flight out."

"To hell with the fate of the universe."

"To hell with it," Steve says, and pulls Bucky close; stops them in the field a second, sets his mouth against his temple. It's the little moments that get them through, always has been. "What's the universe ever done for us?"

  



End file.
